No Mark upon Her dk&gj-14

by Deborah Crombie

  Ross gave the barmaid his card, but after a moment she came back and said quietly, “I’m sorry, sir, but your card’s been declined.”

  “Bloody bank.” Ross’s face flushed with the quick temper Freddie remembered. “Stupid buggers couldn’t put their bloody socks on straight.”

  “Look, let me,” said Freddie, embarrassed for his friend. He reached for his wallet. “It’s the least I can—”

  “No, no.” Ross had already pulled out another card. “No problem. It’s just that card. Their computers always seem to be going down, or something.”

  The second card seemed fine, as the girl returned with the drinks and a perfunctory smile.

  Ross held up his glass. “Well, cheers isn’t exactly appropriate, old man.”

  “Salute, then,” said Freddie, and lifted his own. The first swallow of gin went down like fire, and with the smell of cucumber came memories of summer regattas and too many gins and Pimm’s drunk in canvas enclosures. He saw Becca, her face flushed with victory after a race, and Ross shaking a bottle of champagne to make it fizz. His head swam. Was he remembering Henley or Oxford?

  He looked at Ross. “We had some good times, didn’t we?”

  “Oh, that we did.” Ross downed half his gin and made a face. “But the no-drinks-in-training thing was a bitch.”

  “You never did want to work that hard, did you?” said Freddie. He remembered Ross, always skiving off training with some complaint or other, and then, when he’d been put in Isis, the second boat, he’d been furious. But fate had smiled on him when, on the day of the Boat Race, his counterpart in the Blue Boat had come down with a nasty case of stomach flu and Ross had taken his place.

  Fate had been fickle, however. Everything had gone against them on race day. The weather was foul and the crew had lost their synergy. The boat just didn’t move, and the harder they tried, the worse it got. They’d been half swamped, and had lost by humiliating lengths, collapsing in agony at the finish. And afterwards, no one had said what everyone had thought: Ross Abbott had not been up to the job.

  But Ross hadn’t let the disastrous race damage his prospects, and he’d made good use of his Blue. Although Oxford and Cambridge Blues were awarded in other sports, the rowing Blue was still by far the most prestigious. And if you made the Blue Boat, it didn’t matter if you won or lost, as long as you didn’t sink before the Fulham Bend.

  Freddie took another sip of his gin and studied his friend. Ross hadn’t been as tall as most of the rowers, so he had tried to make up for the deficiency in height by adding bulk. He’d been good at lifting weights, and it had given him power if not finesse.

  Now, although the shoulders under his lightweight sports coat were still broad, he looked thicker and softer around the middle. A few too many gins, Freddie thought, and raised his own. “Still working out?” he asked.

  Ross looked pleased. “Got a new gym at home. A new house, in fact, in Barnes.”

  “Barnes? That’s brilliant. Things must be going well for you.”

  “Looking up, yeah,” Ross said, leaning in for a conspiratorial wink. “I’ve got a deal in the works”—he shook his head, grinning—“knock your sodding socks off.”

  Like many Blues, regardless of the degrees they’d taken at university, Ross had gone into investment banking—with better results than Freddie had seen in commercial real estate, apparently.

  He glanced round at the other men in the bar. Like Ross, they were wearing expensive clothes, drinking expensive drinks, huddled in quiet and self-important conference. Fat cats. They were fat cats. Had he been in danger of becoming one, too? Was that the real reason Becca had left him?

  Freddie realized his mind was wandering. The gin was beginning to go to his head. He forced himself to concentrate. Ross had, after all, gone out of his way to be a mate today. “Listen, Ross. I really appreciate your doing this for me. You’re a good friend.”

  “Bollocks.” Ross gave him an awkward clap on the shoulder. “It was the least anyone could do. You let me know whatever else you need. And Chris as well—she’d have come today if it wasn’t for work and the kids.”

  “Chris, and the boys? They’re doing well?”

  Ross lowered his voice again. “Chris may have a promotion in the works. All hush-hush, but she’s made a good job of impressing the right people.”

  For an instant, Freddie heard Becca’s voice, slightly waspish, murmuring, And what does that have to do with being a good copper? He shook his head, wondering if he was going thoroughly bonkers, and tried to focus on what Ross was saying.

  “—and the boys, well, it’s not official yet, but there’s a good chance for”—he looked round, and this time spoke in a whisper deserving of a state secret—“Eton.”

  “Eton?” said Freddie, surprised at the rush of resentment he felt. “Wow. So no old school tie, then. Bedford School not good enough for the Abbott offspring?”

  “It’s not that, man, you know that.” Ross sounded hurt. “It’s just that you’ve got to do whatever is best for the kids. Help them get on in the world.”

  “Right.” Freddie forced a smile. Kids. He had wanted kids. Becca hadn’t. And now it would never matter.

  Exhaustion swept over him, and he suddenly wanted nothing but to go home and be alone.

  Ross tipped up the last of his drink, then, before Freddie could protest, signaled the barmaid and ordered another round for them both. Ross turned to him. “About today. I really am sorry, mate. Was it bad, at the mortuary? Was she—was she cut up or anything?”

  “She was fine,” said Freddie, feeling guilty over his momentary antagonism towards his friend. “There was nothing that you could see, really. She just looked—” His throat tightened and he couldn’t bring himself to say the word. Dead.

  “Have the police talked to you? Do they have any idea what happened?”

  “They’ve talked to me, all right. But nobody’s told me anything. They called in a superintendent from Major Crimes. Scotland Yard.”

  Ross gave a low whistle. “Big-time, buddy. They’re bringing in the muscle. So, have they asked you where you were?”

  The alcohol from the night before had aggravated Kieran’s vertigo, as he’d known it would. After the search, he’d managed to avoid the rest of the team. But once on his own, he’d been unable to shut out the recurring image of Becca’s body, trapped in the roots below the weir, the strands of her hair moving like fronds in the current.

  So he had gone to the pub, where Tavie had found him. Afterwards, he’d stumbled home and fallen onto the camp bed in the boatshed. For a while he’d drifted in a cider-induced doze, in which he’d seen Becca’s white face again and again, gazing up at him with open, pleading eyes.

  But then the nightmare shifted, and he’d suddenly realized that parts of her body were missing, blown away, and her face became the faces of the men in his unit, and their screams had filled his ears.

  Then it was Tavie, Tavie shouting at him, giving him commands he couldn’t understand and couldn’t follow.

  He woke, sweating, and found the reality as bad as the dream. Becca. Becca was dead. And Tavie, his best friend—his only real friend—was lost to him.

  At the first hint of dawn, he’d given up on sleep and made coffee as strong as he could bear. Then, with Finn beside him, he’d taken his cup outside and watched the light grow slowly on the river. Gray water melded into gray sky, then the skeletal shapes of trees began to appear on the far bank, and at last, as the mist lifted, the still-green froth of the willows trailing in the water’s edge.

  The water’s edge . . . Kieran frowned in concentration, and then it flickered again, the image that had been teasing him since they’d found the Filippi.

  He had seen someone at the water’s edge. Not where they’d found the boat, but a good bit farther upstream, the other side of Temple Island. A fisherman, or so he had thought, standing there in the shadows when he’d gone for his evening run on Sunday.

  And he had been th
ere again, on Monday.

  Kieran had made a habit of timing his runs so that he passed Becca rowing her evening workout, but on Monday, she’d been late, and he must have already been back on the upstream side of Henley Bridge by the time she’d gone out.

  Oh, dear God. If only he’d delayed a few minutes, dawdled on his route, could he have saved her?

  And the fisherman—what if the fisherman had been waiting for her? She’d have passed right by him after she rounded Temple Island and started back towards Leander, and she’d have been staying close to the Bucks bank, where the wind and the current favored the upstream stroke.

  If she’d capsized there, or been tipped, or been pulled out of the shell, then the end of Benham’s Wood, where they’d found the Filippi, was probably the first place the shell would have snagged as it floated downriver. And Becca—Becca would have gone on with the current, until her body caught in the eddy below the weir.

  Kieran stood, determined to examine the place where he’d seen the man as soon as it was fully light. But then everything reeled and tipped sideways, and the next thing he knew, he was lying on the soft grass at the river’s edge.

  Groaning, he mumbled, “Goddamned bloody vertigo.” What kind of life was this, when without warning it could fell him like a tree?

  For a long time, he watched the whirling, juddering sky grow brighter. At last he drifted into a light sleep. Finn woke him by whimpering and nudging him with his nose.

  “Sorry, boy,” he croaked, his mouth dry. “Fucking useless, aren’t I?”

  Experimentally, he shifted his head a fraction. So far, so good. The short sleep had helped the dizziness, as it usually did. After a bit, he was able to get up and stagger inside, and he managed to pour some food into Finn’s bowl before stretching out on the camp bed. He slept again, more soundly, and when he woke in mid-afternoon, he felt stable enough on his feet to venture into Henley.

  There was no easy access to the Buckinghamshire side of the Thames Path. He could have taken the Land Rover as far as the beginning of the footpath that veered off from the Marlow Road, but with the frequency and severity of the vertigo he hadn’t dared drive. So after taking the skiff the few yards across to the mainland, he walked, occasionally using Finn’s sturdy back for support. All the while he half hoped and half feared he would see Tavie.

  A few of the people he passed, seeing his unsteady gait, threw him the disgusted looks reserved for drunks, but he didn’t care. He wanted only to see if he was right, or if the man in the trees had been a delusion.

  The sun, partially obscured by the clouds moving in from the west, was low in the sky by the time he passed the entrance to Phyllis Court and turned onto the footpath. Finn watched the meadow by Henley Football Club intently—he knew from previous walks that rabbits played there—but he stayed close at Kieran’s heel.

  The way seemed endless, and Kieran approached the far end of the last meadow with relief. But this was as far as he and Finn had ever ventured, and when he saw what lay ahead, his heart sank. Here, an inlet of the Thames snaked into the beginnings of a boggy wood, and a narrow plank footbridge provided the only crossing. There was no way round that Kieran could see, so he held the rails as he crossed, stepping as carefully as a child, and he did the same on the next, even narrower, footbridge.

  As he walked on, brushing at the overhanging branches that caught at his hair, the path grew less defined, twisting and turning deeper into the woods until it threatened to vanish altogether.

  And then he came round one more bend, and he was there. He knew the place at once.

  A small bowl of a clearing lay between the path and the river, hemmed by trees and trailing brush. A signpost on one of the trees stated FISHING LICENSE REQUIRED. The grass in the clearing looked soft and swampy, and was still vibrantly green, even in late October. In a muddy spot to one side, Kieran thought he could make out a clear footprint.

  He didn’t dare go closer, for fear of disturbing evidence, but he thought the flotsam at the water’s edge had been disturbed. When he looked north, through a gap in the trees, he could just make out the white gleam of the folly on the tip of Temple Island. Was this, then, where Becca had died?

  The blood rushed to his head. He crouched, his arm across Finn’s shoulders, fighting the dizziness, forcing himself to breathe. Then the skin crawled on the back of his neck.

  He knew that feeling. He’d had it in Iraq, when his unit had been observed by hostiles. Someone was watching him. Finn’s ears came up, but he didn’t growl, and Kieran couldn’t tell if the dog had sensed something or was just reading his master’s signals.

  Finn whined and butted at him, upsetting his balance. “Okay, okay,” he whispered, steadying himself. Carefully, he stood and looked round, checking the path in either direction, then the dense wood behind him.

  Nothing.

  He felt a drop of moisture on his cheek, then another. The rain that had been threatening all day was moving in, and the light was fading fast. If he didn’t start back, he’d be limping across those footbridges and through the meadows in near zero visibility, and he hadn’t brought a torch.

  He looked once more at the clearing. He was certain now that he hadn’t imagined the man he had seen here. But he was a clapped-out, freaked-out Iraq vet who yesterday had destroyed his only fragile claim to credibility. Who would believe him?

  When they’d arrived at the Yard, Kincaid found that his chief was out to lunch and would afterwards be attending a planning meeting in Lambeth.

  Kincaid had been tempted to go back to Shepherd’s Bush and have another talk with Gaskill, but he hadn’t wanted to betray Becca’s sergeant’s confidence. So after he and Cullen had grabbed a sandwich in the canteen, he shut himself in his office and did his own research on Angus Craig. He didn’t like what he found.

  To some degree, all senior officers in the Met rotated from division to division, filling different positions. But it seemed that Craig had moved more than most, and after a certain point, although he’d risen in rank, his postings had seemed to carry less and less responsibility.

  He sat back from the computer, frowning, and rang Superintendent Mark Lamb. Lamb was Gemma’s guv’nor at Notting Hill, but he was also an old friend of Kincaid’s, and someone he trusted to give him a straight opinion.

  “Craig?” Lamb said when they’d dispensed with the pleasantries. “Well, off the record, he’s a bit dodgy, really. I’ve worked with him on a few committees. He’s not a man you want to cross. He likes to use his influence, and not always to the betterment of his fellow officers.”

  “Any problems with female officers in particular?” Kincaid asked.

  “There were whispers,” Lamb said reluctantly. “I don’t want to tell tales out of school, and I never had anything concrete. But I got the impression that the female officers avoided him whenever possible.”

  “You don’t mean just an old-fashioned bias against working with women, I take it?”

  “I think it was more than that. Hang on.” Lamb murmured to someone in the background. “Look, I’ve got to go. But tell Gemma we’re looking forward to having her back next week.”

  “Will do,” said Kincaid, and rang off.

  There was a tap on his office door and Cullen came in. “I’ve been on to Henley,” he said, taking the visitor’s chair. “I’ve assigned a family liaison officer to Freddie Atterton, although Atterton had already made the official identification before I could get the FLO to accompany him.

  “I’ve had a word with the press officer and said the usual—deepest regrets, one of our finest officers, putting all our resources towards finding an explanation for DCI Meredith’s tragic death, etc., etc. But they want you in your finest in Henley tomorrow morning for a five-minute stint with the cameras.”

  Kincaid nodded. He didn’t like doing interviews, but it was a necessary, and sometimes useful, part of an investigation. It was a good thing he would get home tonight for a change of clothes. “Anything new from the fore
nsics teams, or this afternoon’s interviews?”

  Shaking his head, Cullen said, “Not yet. What about this Angus Craig business, guv?”

  “I don’t think we can take that any further until I’ve had a word with the chief.” He glanced at his watch. It was almost five. His patience with his chief superintendent was evaporating, but he wasn’t leaving until he’d seen him. “I’m going to stay on a bit, Doug, but you go home. I expect you have boxes to deal with. When are you out of your flat?”

  Cullen grinned. “This weekend. Good thing I don’t have much to pack.”

  “You’d best take advantage of a lull, then. We’ll make an early start for Henley in the morning.”

  After Cullen left, Kincaid shuffled papers with one eye on the clock. He was just about to go knock on the chief’s door when Childs’s secretary rang and summoned him.

  Kincaid entered the chief superintendent’s office without ceremony, and when Childs gestured towards his usual chair, he shook his head.

  “I won’t keep you long, sir.”

  Childs’s usually implacable gaze sharpened. “What’s going on, Duncan? Is there a development?”

  Kincaid had worked under Denis Childs for more than six years, and they’d been on first-name terms for much of that time. Not only did he consider Childs a personal friend, but they were also connected through the house in Notting Hill, which Kincaid and Gemma leased from Denis’s sister. At the moment, however, he wasn’t inclined towards informality.

  “Sir, were you aware that there was some sort of connection between Deputy Assistant Commissioner Angus Craig and Rebecca Meredith?”

  Childs looked startled. “Did Peter Gaskill tell you that?”

  A heavy man, Childs had made an effort to lose weight in the past year, and now his skin seemed to sag on his body, as if it had belonged to someone a size larger. The resulting fleshy folds around Childs’s dark almond-shaped eyes had not made his expression any easier to read, but from his response, Kincaid assumed that he had known something.

  Avoiding an answer that would implicate Sergeant Patterson, he said, “What I’d like to know is why you didn’t tell me. If there was some relationship between Rebecca Meredith and DAC Craig, it seems the fact that Craig lives a mile from where Meredith’s body was found might be relevant. That’s a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”